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Now the Milo native is back at the Pittsfield school as the varsity coach.

Ladd, who took more than 10 years off from coaching to raise a family, replaces Jordan Larlee, who resigned after three seasons for personal reasons according to MCI athletic director Jim Leonard.

Larlee’s teams posted a 26-32 overall record with two Class B North tournament quarterfinal appearances.

“This is a great opportunity,” the 37-year-old Ladd said. “It’s a good school and there are a lot of good people in the community.

“We have a young roster but there is a lot of potential if we can keep the group together the next couple of seasons.”

Ladd inherits a team that went 4-14 last season with four seniors, a junior, two sophomores and four freshmen on it.

“I’m big on team continuity. Basketball is an unforgiving sport if you don’t have all five players in the same place mentally and in terms of commitment. You can’t hide anybody on the floor,” Ladd said.

He places a high priority on tenacious team defense, playing hard all the time, and being an aggressive rebounding team.

“If you don’t rebound, you won’t play,” he said.

Ladd, who lives in Dexter, is a University of Maine at Farmington graduate who is a surveyor and reality capture manager for the James W. Sewall Co. in Old Town.

He played soccer, baseball and basketball and also ran track at Penquis High School. He was on coach Tony Hamlin’s 2000 Class C state championship basketball team.

Ladd said Hamlin taught him the value of team continuity and discipline.

Ladd previously was the JV boys basketball coach at Carrabec High School in North Anson.

Ladd said the MCI boosters group sent him videos of all of last season’s games and he is going to study them to acclimate myself and see what he has.

Leonard said Ladd was one of 14 applicants.

“He was very energetic. And he seemed to be very well-prepared,” Leonard said. “He knows a lot about the game and one of his first questions to us was about access to game film. It was clear he likes to study the game.”

Leonard expects him to be totally immersed in the program and in the school.

“He’s an all-in [type of guy],” Leonard said.

Photo courtesy of MCI athleticsLevi Ladd has been hired as the varsity girls basketball coach at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield

It's a difficult decision when you only get together with your friends once a year, but with the ongoing difficulties surrounding the coronavirus, the officers and executive committee have made the decision to cancel the 2020 reunion for the Brownville Junction High School Alumni Association. While this event isn't held until mid August, planning has to take place in the spring; things are too uncertain to go ahead with plans to meet this year.

We will certainly miss the fellowship this year. It is our hope that everyone who planned to come this year will be safe and well and ready to get together next year!

While there will be no reunion and no annual meeting, anyone wishing to remain (or become) a member is asked to send their $10 dues for this year to BJHS Alumni, PO Box 151, Brownville Junction ME 04415.

The group has decided that the annual scholarships WILL be given out this year. There are several changes in the application process in that most students are not in school or on campus. Here are the instructions for this year's application:

Just a reminder that grandchildren, great-grandchildren and step-grand/great-grandchildren are eligible to apply for the scholarships provided that “connection” is a member in good standing (or was at the time of his/her death).

Dues may be included with a scholarship application instead of sending a separate mailing.

This year as student needs only to (1) complete the application (minus the official signature at the bottom) and (2) send a copy of their most recent grades.

This year we will use all students’ cumulative grade point average as a standard.

This year only the 8 usual scholarships will be given. In that there will be no annual meeting, there will be no opportunity for the group to vote on additional scholarships as they have in past years.

Dues may be sent along with the scholarship application, if you wish.

Applications still need to be received by July 31st.

Over the past few years the decision has been made at the annual meeting to provide more than the eight scholarships normally given out as there have been a number of very qualified students who...

Bissell Brothers Brewing had a product to sell in late March but suddenly lacked the most direct method of distribution — its taprooms in southern and central Maine.

Gov. Janet Mills shut down bars and restaurants around the state to dine-in service nearly two months ago in an effort to deter the spread of COVID-19, impelling businesses like the popular Maine-based craft brewery to develop quick sales alternatives beyond curbside pickup in order to maintain financial solvency.

“As this all started to happen it felt like you had these 72-hour cycles where the world would change dramatically and it kept changing one way,” said Matt Robinson, general manager of the craft brewery’s northern Maine operations in Milo.

“Then 72 hours after policing the doors a little better and spreading out the tables and being on five-minute cleaning cycles and with everything looking different, it quickly became, ‘The taproom’s not going to be open at all. What do we do?’”

Company officials blended social media marketing with a tradition resembling milk sales of generations past to develop a near-statewide home delivery system virtually on the fly — or at least on the roads of Maine — to accommodate much of their fan base while continuing to generate income.

Bissell Brothers now has delivery routes covering most of northern and southern Maine, the northern routes based in Milo and the southern routes leaving from the company’s Portland base, which opened in 2014.

“Between everything we’re doing up here and down there, we’re not missing very much,” said Robinson of the brewery’s in-state geographic reach.

That’s particularly true in the less populated more northern reaches where the deliveries originate at the production facility and taproom brothers Noah and Peter Bissell — the company’s founders — built at a former snowmobile dealership in their Piscataquis County hometown of Milo two years ago.=

Barrels of beer surround an old ‘Welcome to Milo’ sign inside the Bissell Brothers Three Rivers taproom and brewery center in Milo. Company officials have been using the facility in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as a distribution center for deliveries to customers throughout northern, central and Down East Maine.

“Here curbside isn’t as big so we said let’s try [delivery] and see if there’s anything there,” said Robinson, whose parents grew up in Milo. “Let’s see if we can find routes that make some economic sense and where you can get enough orders built up so you can go do a route and bring beer to people.”

Those routes developed organically over a matter of days.

“What started to happen was that from Facebook messages and Instagram messages and from people we’ve become friends with over the years of being open here starting to reach out saying, ‘Hey, if I put a big order together with some friends would you come to...